Mark Reviews Movies: WORTH

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 2, 2021

Near the start of Worth, the professor writes the question on the chalkboard: "What is a life worth?" This isn't a philosophical inquiry. It has nothing to do with the preciousness, sanctity, and uniqueness of every living human. As this professor proposes it, the question is a legal one and, at an even more foundational level, an economic one.

It is cold and calculated, determined by a formula of what income a now-dead or injured person was earning from their employment or could have earned from future work, spread over the years of an average lifespan. The answer is a number, to be determined by a formula and to be printed upon a check, as compensation to the injured or those surviving the deceased.

This determination is common in the world of civil court, when wrongful injuries or deaths are caused by another person or a product made by a company. The circumstances are tragic and, in theory, avoidable, but the emotional impact of this process—reducing the value of someone's health or life to an exact number as a dollar amount—is relatively limited to the injured person or the loved ones of someone who has died.

That process unfolds in director Sara Colangelo and screenwriter Max Borenstein's film, but the circumstances depicted were unthinkable at the time. The impact, on so many fronts of life, is still being measured.

After September 11, 2001, someone had to come up with a series numbers that represented each and every of the thousands of people who were killed or injured in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the crash in that field in Pennsylvania, after ordinary people stopped even more death and destruction. Those numbers would eventually end up on thousands of checks, sent to survivors and the families of victims.

Twenty years have passed since that day, as unbelievable as that passage of time may have seemed in that moment. Even though this film takes place within a timeframe that's relatively close to the tragedy, it possesses a sense of that distance, in that it follows what's mostly an objective and unfeeling procedure.

The talk here is mostly about numbers, dollar amounts, political and/or economic worries, and a completely impartial formula. Isn't that how we (or at least those of us who weren't directly affected) talk and think about 9/11 now—the number of years that have passed, the amount of money that has been spent on security and reconstruction and war efforts, the various politics and economic formulas that go along with that spending?

For some, at least part of that line of thinking was perceived as necessary within a matter of weeks. The story follows attorney Ken Feinberg (Michael Keaton), the professor with the question from the early scene, who more or less volunteers to take a job that no one else wants: to come up with the numbers of how much the lives of the victims of 9/11 are worth. The administration of George W. Bush and the airline companies see the proposed governmental compensation fund as an economic necessity.

If the families of those killed and survivors decided to sue the airlines, it theoretically could put those companies out of business and, as a result, crash the entire economy. The government will provide financial compensation to those who agree to it, with a stipulation that they'll agree not to take any legal action.

One has to put the potential legal accountability of these companies and the morality of the motives behind this plan (which sometimes sounds a bit like blackmail, especially when characters start making a hard push for family members to accept the offer) aside. These are the stakes, and there's a deadline for a certain percentage of people to agree. Ken and his team—which includes Camille Biros (Amy Ryan), who's cynical about the underlying heartlessness of the plan but still believes it could do good, and Priya Khundi (Shunori Ramanathan), who was supposed to begin working in an office at the World Trade Center on the week of the attacks—have to interview family members of victims and gather financial information.

The key to the film's success is primarily its juxtaposition of the calculated nature of the compensation process and the often devastating testimonials from those who lost wives, husbands, children, and romantic partners. If the purpose behind telling this particular story of the aftermath of September 11—with its focus on apathetic math and manipulative political/economic maneuvers—is to reflect the current distance from the attacks, Colangelo ensures that those stories—often shot in close-up and with little relief from looking at faces in tremendous grief, disbelief, and anger—return us to the raw pain of that day.

Some families have a more significant focus. One widow wants nothing to do with the fund or anything, although her brother-in-law wants her to make a statement in either refusing or accepting it. A gay man has to deal with the fact that the state where he and his dead lover, who were about to enter into a civil union, doesn't recognize their relationship. Charles Wolf (Stanley Tucci) lost his wife in one of the towers, and he's pushing Ken to look beyond his formula and, more importantly, to simply treat these people with enough dignity to talk to them.

Keaton's performance, as a man of numbers and procedure who finds his conscience and empathy, serves as a solid foundation for this particular story, which is ultimately about shedding the detachment of years and other numbers. In its best and most overwhelming moment, Worth forces us to confront that 20-year-old promise to never forget.

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